The Future of Water Is Recycled Sewage, And We'll All Be Drinking It
Faced with another historic dry spell, California has overcome its squeamishness about "toilet-to-tap.” So should we all.
Dune had the right idea when it came to coping with drought.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
More than a few dystopian fantasies depict a future in which humanity’s water supply derives from recycled human waste. As Frank Herbert imagined it in his 1965 novel "Dune" — now a much-anticipated fall 2021 blockbuster — the humans inhabiting a dessicated, rainless planet must wear “stillsuits”— a rubbery second skin that captures sweat, urine and feces and recycles them into drinking water.
Today, elements of this vision are becoming a reality. While no climate models predict a future without rain on Earth, all show severe disturbances in hydrology: increasingly excessive rain and flooding in some regions, and intensifying drought in others. California has now become a leading example of the latter. Suffering through a prolonged dry period, utilities are increasingly relying on sewage to generate the state's water needs.